316 THE WINTER SOLSTICE 



occasion to jump a low fence into a covert. It was like 

 plunging into sunshine. The whole floor of the wood 

 was carpeted with gold, far as the eye could reach among 

 the vistas of stems. Like the bulbs of snowflake, the 

 corms of winter aconites are too often purchased in a 

 dry condition, and come to little or nothing when planted. 

 The best way to establish this most desirable herb is by 

 moving growing roots or raising it from seed. 



After all, one cannot do without Christmas roses (Helle- 

 borus niger) to carry one through the dead time of year. 

 Of these the noblest and earliest is the variety known 

 to gardeners as altifolius or maximus, which produces 

 its earliest blossoms in October, and keeps a profuse 

 supply till the running is taken up by a great number 

 of varieties of the same species. One positively cannot 

 have too many of these delightful herbs, the very Mark 

 Tapleys of the floral world, gladdening all the borders 

 which they can be persuaded to make their home. But, 

 alas ! how capricious they seem. Here is the poor man's 

 plot in which they revel, spreading into spacious clumps 

 and sending up sheaves of bloom, ivory and rose, winter 

 after winter ; and there is the rich man's parterre, where 

 the chances are they refuse to produce either flowers or 

 leaves. you who possess abundance of Christmas roses ! 

 fortunatos nimium, see that you keep them. Never let 

 them be disturbed at the root, for you know not what 

 vain labour some of us have spent in vain endeavour to 

 possess the like. 



Another most capricious little winter beauty is the 

 hepatica or liverwort, an ugly name given to the plant 

 by mediaeval herbalists because of the fancied resemblance 



